A Brief History of Search & SEO

Written by 9JATECHUPDATES-OFFICIAL

@9JATECHUPDATES

Tracing
the history of SEO is kind of like trying to trace the history of the
handshake. We all know it exists, and we know it’s an important part of
business. But we don’t spend a ton of time thinking about its origins --
we’re mostly concerned with how we use it day-to-day.
But unlike the handshake, SEO is fairly young, and changes
frequently. Quite appropriately, it appears to be a millennial -- its
birth is predicted to fall somewhere around 1991.
And in its relatively short life, it’s matured and evolved rather quickly -- just look at how many changes Google’s algorithm alone has gone through.

So where did SEO begin, and how did it become so darn important? Join
us, as we step back in time and try to figure this out -- as it turns
out, it’s quite a story.

But First, a Look Back at Search Engines

The first idea for creating a common archive for all the world’s data
came to fruition in 1945. That July, Dr. Vannevar Bush -- then director
of the now-defunct Office of Scientific Research and Development --
published a piece in The Atlantic
proposing a “collection of data and observations, the extraction of
parallel material from the existing record, and the final insertion of
new material into the general body of the common record.” In other
words, we believe, today’s Google.
Several decades later, in 1990, McGill University student Alan Emtage
created Archie, which some say was the very first search engine --
though that remains up for debate, according to research
from Bill Slawski, president and founder of SEO by the Sea. However,
Archie was what Slawski called the “best way to find information from
other servers around the internet at the time,” and is actually still
(very primitive) operation.
The next decade saw several pivotal developments, with the more commercial versions of search engines we might recognize today taking shape.

February 1993: Six Stanford students create Architext, which would later become the search engine Excite. Some, like Search Engine Land
(SEL), say that Excite “revolutionized how information was cataloged,”
making it easier to find information “by sorting results based on
keywords found within content and backend optimization.”

December 1993: At least three “bot-fed” search engines exist -- JumpStation, RBSE spider
and World Wide Web Worm -- which likely means they were powered by web
robots to crawl both servers and site content to produce results.

It’s worth noting that nearly twelve years later, in June 2009, Microsoft released Bing -- its previous editions were also known as Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search.
But here’s where SEO itself comes in. As search engines became more
mainstream and widely used, site owners started to get wise. As SEO
community Moz
puts it, “It was discovered that by taking some rather simple actions,
search engine results could be manipulated and money could be made from
the internet.”
Those results, though, weren’t exactly quality ones. And that, dear readers, is where the SEO story begins.

A Brief History of Search & SEO

The ‘90s

With search engines becoming household names and more families
becoming connected to the Internet, finding information came with
greater ease. The problem, as noted above, was the quality of that
information.
While search engine results matched words from user queries, it was
usually limited to just that, as an overwhelming amount of site owners
took to keyword stuffing -- repeating keywords over and over again in
the text -- to improve rankings (for which there was no criteria), drive
traffic to their pages and produce attractive numbers for potential
advertisers.
There was also a bit of collusion going on. In addition to the keyword stuffing, people were using excessive and “spammy backlinks,”
according to SEL, to improve their authorities. Not only were there no
ranking criteria at the time -- but by the time search engines fixed
algorithms accordingly, there were already new black hat SEO practices taking place that the fixes didn’t address.

But then, two kids at Stanford got an idea.

When Page and Brin set out to create Google, that was one of the
problems they wanted to solve. In 1998, the pair published a paper at
Stanford titled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search
Engine,” where they wrote:

...the predominant business model for commercial search engines is
advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always
correspond to providing quality search to users.”

It was in that same paper that Page and Brin first mentioned
PageRank, the technology that Google uses to help rank search results
based on quality, and not keywords alone. Some might say that thesis
cleared the path for SEO as we know it today.

The Early 2000s

The early 2000s saw the beginning of the Google takeover. In the
process of making search engine technology less advertising-centric,
Google began to provide guidelines for white hat SEO -- the kind that
the “good guys” stick to -- to help webmasters rank without any of the
common fishy behavior from the 90s.

2000-2002

But according to Moz,
the guidelines didn’t yet have an actual impact on ranking, so people
didn’t bother following them. That’s partially because PageRank was
based on the number of inbound links to a given page -- the more of
those, the higher the ranking. But there wasn’t yet a way to measure the
authenticity of those links -- for the early part of the 2000s, Marketing Technology Blog says it was still possible to use these backlinking techniques to rank pages that weren't even related to search criteria.
But in 2001, Brin and Page appeared on "Charlie Rose," when the host
asked them, "Why does it work so well?" As part of his answer, Brin
emphasized that -- at the time -- Google was a search engine and nothing
else, and was looking at "the web as a whole, and not just which words
occur on each page." It set the tone for some of the initial major
algorithm updates that would begin to more closely examine those words.
Have a look at the full interview:

2003-2004

This approach to the web being about more than just words really
began taking shape in November 2003, with the “Florida” update to
Google’s algorithm. Enough sites lost their ranking for Search Engine Watch
to call the response to Florida a massive “outcry,” but careful to note
that many sites benefitted from the change, too. It was the first major
instance of sites receiving penalties for things like keyword stuffing, signaling Google’s emphasis on solving for the user first -- mainly with quality content.
In 2004, one of the more primitive versions of Google's voice search existed, in what the New York Times
called a half-finished experiment. And while the technology was
somewhat infantile at the time -- just check out what the instructions
looked like at first -- it was also a signal to the future importance of
mobile in SEO. (Stay tuned -- more on that later.)

2005: A big year for SEO

One of the biggest years in the search engine world was 2005. That
January, Google united with Yahoo and MSN for the Nofollow Attribute,
which was created in part to decrease the amount of spammy links and comments on websites,
especially blogs. Then, in June, Google debuted personalized search,
which used someone’s search and browsing history to make results more
relevant.
That November, Google Analytics launched, which is still used today
to measure traffic and campaign ROI. Check out its baby photo:

2009: SEO shakeups

In 2009, the search engine world saw a bit of a shakeup. Bing
premiered that June, with Microsoft aggressively marketing it as the
search engine that would produce noticeably better results than Google. But as SEL predicted, it was no “Google-killer,” nor did its advice for optimizing content
significantly contrast Google’s. In fact, according to Search Engine
Journal, the only noticeable difference was Bing’s tendency to give
priority to keywords in URLs, as well as favoring capitalized words and
“pages from large sites.”
That same year, in August, Google provided a preview of the Caffeine
algorithm change, requesting the public’s help to test the “next-generation infrastructure” that Moz says was “designed to speed crawling, expand the index, and integrate indexation and ranking in nearly real-time.”
Caffeine wasn’t fully introduced until nearly a year later -- when it
also improved the search engine’s speed -- but in December of 2009, a
tangible real-time search was released, with Google search results
including things like tweets and breaking news. It was a move that
confirmed SEO wasn’t just for webmasters anymore -- from that moment
forward, journalists, web copywriters and even social community managers
would have to optimize content for search engines.
Here's Matt Cutts, Google's head of webspam, discussing Caffeine in August 2009:

2010-Present

When you’re typing in a search query into Google, it’s kind of fun to
see what its suggestions are. That’s thanks to the Google Instant
technology, which rolled out in September 2010. At first, Moz says, it
made SEOs “combust,” until they realized that it didn’t really have any
result on ranking.
But Google Instant, along with the evolution of SEO from 2010 on, was
just another phase of the search engine’s mission to solve for the user
-- despite some controversy along the way around pages whose rankings were actually improved by negative online reviews. The algorithm, Google said, was eventually adjusted to penalize sites using such tactics.
More on Google Instant, circa 2010:

That year also saw a growing importance of social media content in
SEO. In December 2010, both Google and Bing added "social signals,"
which first displayed any written Facebook posts, for example, from your
own network that matched your query. But it also began to give PageRank to Twitter profiles that were linked to with some frequency. The importance of Twitter in SEO didn't end there -- stay tuned.

2011: The year of the panda

The trend of punishing sites for unfairly gaming Google’s algorithm
would continue. Some of these incidents were more public than others,
including one with Overstock.com in 2011. At the time, according to Wall Street Journal,
domains ending with .edu generally had a higher authority in Google’s
eyes. Overstock used that to its advantage by asking educational
institutions to link to its site -- and use keywords like “vacuum
cleaners” and “bunk beds” -- offering discounts for students and faculty
in return. Those inbound links would improve Overstock’s rankings for
queries with such keywords, until Overstock discontinued the practice in
2011 and Google penalizing them soon after.
It was also the year of Panda, which first rolled out that February
-- the algorithm update that cracked down on content farms. Those were
sites with huge quantities of frequently updated, low-quality content
that was written with the sole purpose of driving search engine results.
They also tend to have a high ad-to-content ratios, which Panda was
trained to sniff out.
Panda itself has undergone several updates -- so many that in its timeline of changes to Google’s algorithm, Moz
declined to list any that weren’t major after 2011. Even with that
exclusion, the timeline still lists twenty-eight panda updates -- for
most of which the impact was difficult to measure -- through July of
2015.

2012: Along came a penguin

In April 2012, Google took what it called “another step to reward
high-quality sites” with the first of many Penguin updates -- and, in
the process of announcing it, acknowledged Bing’s month-earlier blog
post on the changing face of SEO.
Penguin targeted sites that more subtly used non-white hat SEO tactics;
for example, those with content that might be mostly informative, but
was also sprinkled with spammy hyperlinks that had nothing to do with
the page’s H1, like in this example:

It's worth noting that 2012 also saw a throwback to Google's original
anti-ad-heavy thesis with the "Above The Fold" update, which began to lower the rankings of sites with heavy ad-space above the "fold," or the top half of the page.
Eventually, Google would go beyond targeting spammy content itself.
The Payday Loan algorithm update -- which was hinted at in June 2013 and
officially rolled out the following May -- actually focused more on
queries that were more likely to produce spammy results. Those were
typically searches for things like, well, payday loans, and other things
that might make your mother blush. Google adjusted its ranking system
to help keep spam out of those results, and while it didn’t necessarily
impact the SEO efforts of legitimate sites, it displayed efforts to keep
search results authentic.

Google goes local

Keeping with the tradition of animal-named algorithm updates, Google released "Pigeon" (dubbed so by SEL)
in 2014, which carried quite an impact on local search results. At the
time, it seems to have been designed to improve Maps queries, which
began to be treated with some of the same technology that was applied to
its other search functions, like "Knowledge Graph, spelling correction, synonyms". Local searches were going to become a big deal -- and it will only continue to do so, as you'll see in a bit.

Then, in 2015...

The biggest post-2010 SEO announcement might have been Google’s
mobile update of April 2015, when non-mobile-friendly websites would
start getting lower rankings. That meant SEO was no longer about
keywords and content -- responsive design mattered, too.
Google announced that change in advance, in February 2015, with a mobile-friendly test
that allowed webmasters to view potential issues and make changes
before the rollout. It wasn’t the last of Google’s mobile updates -- in
August 2016, it announced a crackdown on mobile pop-ups.

What’s Next?

It might be hard to believe, but it looks like even more change is on the horizon.

Going local

But that brings up the issue of localization in SEO, and optimizing
results to be regionally relevant. That’s especially true in the realm
of voice search -- Yelp and other business aggregators are used to
answer voice queries about what’s nearby, for example. That’s an SEO
opportunity for local businesses, by making sure their listings are “comprehensive, accurate and optimized to be referenced” on a third party site.

Getting Social

While the 2009 introduction of Google's real-time search had some
social ramifications, social media is becoming a more pivotal piece of
SEO strategy. When the search engine began indexing tweets in 2011, for
example, it hinted toward a future in which users seek information on
social media in the same way that they do via search. In fact, this
indexing might be Google's version of future-proofing -- if you can
imagine it -- for a time when people no longer use search engines the
way we do now.
For example, type in the name of any celebrity -- say, Charlie Rose,
whose video we shared earlier. The first page of search results for his
name includes his Facebook and Twitter profiles. Plus, check out the
biographical sidebar to the right -- there are social icons with links
to his various networks there, too. When users search for a person,
that's one of the first things they want to see.

In any case, it’s clear why SEO has become a full-time job. Its
history will only continue evolving. Executing it well requires a high
level of skill, ethics, and upkeep on technology.
But we know that, sometimes, it’s not possible to have a single
person dedicated to it, which is why we continue to create the best SEO
learning resources we can. Check out some of our favorites:

What are your favorite pieces of SEO history? Let us know in the comments.

Choosing the right target keywords builds the foundation for an
entire SEO campaign. If the right keywords with the highest potential
for return are not selected, the foundation of the campaign will be weak
and, therefore, success is nearly impossible.
To select the right
keywords, data must be collected and analyzed so projections on return
can be made. Gathering the necessary data, however, can be expensive and
many businesses will not invest in best-of-breed SEO tools.
For those with limited budgets and without access to paid SEO tools,
impactful keyword data is not out of reach. There are plenty of data
sources and tools that can be used for free or offer free versions. By
leveraging several free tools, advertisers can generate enough
information to make informed decisions on keyword targets and set
themselves up for successful SEO campaigns.
Below are three such
tools. In a subsequent post, I will examine the best free SEO tools for
auditing and troubleshooting. I recommend using these tools in
combination with a keyword research guide for best results.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

The
first step in choosing the right keywords is to understand what
keywords consumers are searching and the demand of each of those
keywords. This data can be determined using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. To gain full access to the data you need to sign up for an AdWords account. You do not need to set up any campaigns or spend any advertising money.
There
are three main ways to find relevant keywords using this tool,
including inputting the website or page that is to be optimized, the
category of the products or services the website offers, or a seed list
of keywords related to those products or services. Before researching
the keywords, however, it is important to implement the correct
settings. Since we are looking for specific keywords that the market is
searching, we want to analyze at the demand of exact match keywords
rather than variations. To see the demand (search volume) of the
keywords, use the “Match Types” option in the right sidebar and select [Exact].
The
first way to identify keywords is to input the domain or page you are
trying to optimize. Google will crawl the website and return a list of
suggestions based on the content. For example, if you are looking for
keywords relevant to www.MediaWhiz.com, you would enter the domain into
the Website field and click the Search button for a list of relevant keywords. Once results are returned, be sure to select the Keyword ideas tab as opposed to the Ad group ideas
tab. This will provide a comprehensive list of keywords with associated
search volume. This can also be done using the domains of direct
competitors.
For
keywords related to a specific page, simply input the URL of the page
rather than the domain into the tool for a list of keywords specific to
that page.
The
second way to identify relevant keywords is by selecting the category.
In this instance you would input the category of the products or
services offered instead of a domain or URL. For example, if the service
offered is “marketing,” you would select the “Advertising &
Marketing” category in the Category field and click Search.
This is not always the best use of this keyword tool, however, because
the categories are often very general and some categories are not
available.
The
third and most common way to leverage the Google Adwords Keyword Tool
is to input a list of seed keywords (typically the names of the products
or services offered) into the Word or phrase field. This will return a list of popular searches related to those seed keywords.

Google Analytics

Another
method of identifying potential keyword targets is to look at the
phrases that are already generating organic traffic to a website. This
gives insight into the possibility to increase that traffic via
optimization. Using Google Analytics,
advertisers can review the keywords that are driving traffic
organically to a website. Of course, having a Web analytics platform in
today’s digital marketing world is essential for many reasons and this
is just one. There are many good analytics platforms, some of which have
very high price tags. The standard version of Google Analytics is, in
my opinion, just as useful as any other platform, with the only
difference being it is free of cost.
The keywords driving organic traffic can be seen in Google Analytics using the Organic Search Traffic report. This can be found by navigating the following sequence within the right sidebar: Traffic Sources>Sources>Search>Organic.

To see the specific keywords generating traffic, ensure “Keyword” is selected as the Primary Dimension.
This
report will pull up the keyword level organic traffic metrics for the
period specified. It’s recommended to look at a minimum of the last
three months of data. If the business is seasonal, look at the period
reflective of the high season.
Since
this provides a list of keywords that are already sending traffic to
the website, it is often the case that this traffic is generated because
the keywords have some organic presence in one or more search engines.
Optimizing against those keywords provides the opportunity to rank
higher in the search engines in which the site is already ranking as
well as infiltrating the organic results of additional search engines.
Make a list of non-branded keywords from this report for further
investigation. This may include inputting keywords into the AdWords
Keyword Tool mentioned above to check the demand and into the Rank
Checker tool mentioned below to see where the website is currently
ranking.
There are some other important metrics to look at when
determining target keywords for an SEO campaign. This analytics report
also gives insight into engagement factors, such as bounce rate and
average visit duration at the keyword level. By focusing on keywords
with low bounce rates and a good amount of time spent on the site, the
campaign will be focused not only on the keywords most likely to drive
traffic, but also to drive visitors that are likely to perform an action
on the site.

Rank Checker

Finally, when
starting a new SEO campaign, especially with a small budget, it is
helpful to identify and target the low-hanging fruit. A good strategy is
to target keywords that a website already ranks for but are not yet in a
position capable of garnering strong results. Often, a website will
rank low on page 1 or on page 2 for a strategic keyword without any
optimization effort. By implementing an optimization plan for those
keywords, the website can often quickly move up the ranks into a
position that will garner strong results.
There are many paid
tools to track keyword rankings, but there is an excellent free tool
that allows users to check the rankings of up to 100 keywords on the
fly. Rank Checker is a Firefox extension that can be downloaded after signing up for a free SEOBook account. Once downloaded, Rank Checker is available via an icon located at the bottom right of the Firefox browser.
The
usefulness of Rank Checker for keyword targeting comes in conjunction
with other tools for keyword discovery such as the Adwords Keyword Tool
or Google Analytics. After using those tools to identify lists of
potential keyword targets, it’s easy to find some low hanging fruit
using Rank Checker.
The first step is to set the options by right clicking the Rank Checker icon at the bottom right of Firefox and selecting “Options”.
You
can opt-in to check the rankings of your keywords in Yahoo and Bing as
well as two different country-specific versions of Google
simultaneously. The country-specific versions of Google and Yahoo can be
selected using the drop-downs. Finally, in most cases you will want to
check off the “Don’t use Google personalized search results if any”
option to get an idea of where the site ranks, in general, not using
your browsing history.
Now
you’re ready to run Rank Checker. Simply add your domain and keyword
list (up to 100 keywords at a time) and usually within about a minute
you will have the rankings. Look for high-value keywords that the site
is already ranking low on page 1 or on page 2 or 3 to see what
low-hanging fruit is available. The fact that the site is already
ranking on one of the top pages shows there is already some authority
for that keyword that can be built upon. These are typically quick-win
keywords.
The above tools are my recommendations as three of the
best free SEO keyword resources marketers can find. In my next column, I
will analyze free SEO auditing and troubleshooting tools.What are your favorite free SEO tools for identifying target keywords? Share your recommendations in the comments.

While Google keeps us on our toes with all the algorithm updates they
keep rollin' out, one thing has stayed pretty consistent for inbound
marketers looking to optimize their websites for search: keyword
research.

Well, the need to do keyword research has stayed the same. How you actually do it hasn't.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is when people use keywords to find and research
actual search terms that people enter into search engines. The
knowledge about these actual search terms can help inform content
strategy, or marketing strategy overall.
I'm going to lay out a keyword research process you can follow to help you come up with and narrow down a list of terms you should be targeting.
That way, you'll be able to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy that helps you get found for the search terms you actually care about.

How to Research Keywords for Your SEO Strategy

Step 1: Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

To kick off this process, think about the topics you want to rank for
in terms of generic buckets. You'll come up with about 5-10 topic
buckets you think are important to your business, and then you'll use
those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in
the process.
If you're a regular blogger, these are probably the topics you blog
about most frequently. Or perhaps they're the topics that come up the
most in sales conversations. Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas
-- what types of topics would your target audience search that you'd
want your business to get found for? If you were a company like HubSpot,
for example -- selling marketing software (which happens to have some awesome SEO tools ... but I digress ;-) -- you might have general topic buckets like "inbound marketing," "blogging," "email marketing," "lead generation," "SEO," "social media," "marketing analytics," and "marketing automation."
Make sense?

Step 2: Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.

Now that you have a few topic buckets you want to focus on, it's time
to identify some keywords that fall into those buckets. These are
keyword phrases you think are important to rank for in the SERPs (search
engine results pages) because your target customer is probably
conducting searches for those specific terms.
For instance, if I took that last topic bucket for an inbound
marketing software company -- "marketing automation" -- I'd brainstorm
some keyword phrases that I think people would type in related to that
topic. Those might include:

marketing automation tools

how to use marketing automation software

what is marketing automation?

how to tell if I need marketing automation software

lead nurturing

email marketing automation

top automation tools

And so on and so on. The point of this step isn't to come up with
your final list of keyword phrases -- you just want to end up with a
brain dump of phrases you think potential customers might use to search
for content related to that particular topic bucket. We'll narrow the
lists down later in the process so you don't have something too
unwieldy.(Note: If you're a HubSpot customer,
you'll actualy be able to spend a little less time cutting down your
topics and keyworsd list with HubSpot Content Strategy. Content Strategy helps you identify and research topics to approach based on existing content.)

Although more and more keywords are getting encrypted by Google every day, another smart way to come up with keyword ideas is to figure out which keywords your website is already getting found for. To do this, you'll need website analytics software like Google Analytics or HubSpot's Sources tool.
Drill down into your website's traffic sources, and sift through you
organic search traffic bucket to identify the keywords people are using
to arrive at your site.
Repeat this exercise for as many topic buckets as you have. And
remember, if you're having trouble coming up with relevant search terms,
you can always head on over to your employees on the front lines --
like Sales or Services -- and ask them what types of terms their
prospects and customers use, or common questions they have. Those are
often great starting points for keyword research.

Step 3: Research related search terms.

This is a creative step you may have already thought of when
doing keyword research. If not, it's a great way to fill out those
lists.
If you're struggling to think of more keywords people might be
searching about a specific topic, go to Google.com and take a look at
the related search terms that appear when you plug in a keyword. When
you type in your phrase and scroll to the bottom of Google's results,
you'll notice some suggestions for searches related to your original
input. These keywords can spark ideas for other keywords you may want to
take into consideration.
Want a bonus? Type in some of those related search terms and look at THEIR related search terms.
Want another bonus? HubSpot customers can get suggestions for keywords and topics to consider within the Content Strategy tool.

Step 4: Check for a mix of head terms and long-tail keywords in each bucket.

If you don't know the difference between head terms and
long-tail keywords, let me explain. Head terms are keywords phrases that
are generally shorter and more generic -- they're typically just one
to three words in length, depending on who you talk to. Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are longer keyword phrases usually containing three or more words.
It's important to check that you have a mix of head terms and
long-tail terms because it'll give you a keyword strategy that's well
balanced with long-term goals and short-term wins. That's because
head terms are generally searched more frequently, making them often
(not always, but often) much more competitive and harder to rank for
than long-tail terms. Think about it: Without even looking up search
volume or difficulty, which of the following terms do you think would
be harder to rank for?

how to write a great blog post

blogging

If you answered #2, you're absolutely right. But don't get
discouraged. While head terms generally boast the most search volume
(meaning greater potential to send you traffic), frankly, the traffic
you'll get from the term "how to write a great blog post" is usually
more desirable.
Why?
Because someone who is looking for something that specific
is probably a much more qualified searcher for your product or service
(presuming you're in the blogging space) than someone looking for
something really generic. And because long-tail keywords tend to be more
specific, it's usually easier to tell what people who search for those
keywords are really looking for. Someone searching for the head
term "blogging," on the other hand, could be searching it for a whole
host of reasons unrelated to your business.
So check your keyword lists to make sure you have a healthy mix of
head terms and long-tail keywords. You definitely want some quick wins
that long-tail keywords will afford you, but you should also try to chip
away at more difficult head terms over the long haul.

Step 5: See how competitors are ranking for these keywords.

Just because your competitor is doing something doesn’t mean you need
to. The same goes for keywords. Just because a keyword is important to
your competitor, doesn’t mean it's important to you. However,
understanding what keywords your competitors are trying to rank for is a great way to help you give your list of keywords another evaluation.
If your competitor is ranking for certain keywords that are on your
list, too, it definitely makes sense to work on improving your ranking
for those. However, don’t ignore the ones your competitors don’t seem to
care about. This could be a great opportunity for you to own market share on important terms, too.
Understanding the balance of terms that might be a little more
difficult due to competition, versus those terms that are a little more
realistic, will help you maintain a similar balance that the mix of
long-tail and head terms allows. Remember, the goal is to end up with a
list of keywords that provide some quick wins but also helps you make
progress toward bigger, more challenging SEO goals.
How do you figure out what keywords your competitors are ranking for,
you ask? Aside from manually searching for keywords in an incognito
browser and seeing what positions your competitors are in, SEMrush allows
you to run a number of free reports that show you the top keywords for
the domain you enter. This is a quick way to get a sense of the types of
terms your competitors are ranking for.

Now that you've got the right mix of keywords, it's time to
narrow down your lists with some more quantitative data. You have a lot
of tools at your disposal to do this, but let me share my favorite
methodology.
If you're a HubSpot customer, you can narrow down your list
easily within the Keywords App. Data on visits, rank, difficulty,
historical performance, and even how your competitors are performing is
accessible right within the tool where your keywords live.
If you don't have HubSpot software, I like to use a mix of the Google AdWords Keyword Planner (you'll need to set up an AdWords account for this, but that doesn't mean you have to create an ad), and Google Trends.
In Keyword Planner,
formerly known as the Keyword Tool, you can get search volume and
traffic estimates for keywords you're considering. Unfortunately, when
Google transitioned from Keyword Tool to Keyword Planner, they
stripped out a lot of the more interesting functionality. But you can
make up for it a bit if you take the information you learn from Keyword
Planner and use Google Trends to fill in some blanks.
Use the Keyword Planner to flag any terms on your list that
have way too little (or way too much) search volume, and don't help you
maintain a healthy mix like we talked about above. But before you delete
anything, check out their trend history and projections in Google
Trends. You can see whether, say, some low-volume terms might actually
be something you should invest in now -- and reap the benefits for
later.
Or perhaps you're just looking at a list of terms that is way
too unwieldy, and you have to narrow it down somehow ... Google Trends
can help you determine which terms are trending upward, and are thus
worth more of your focus.

And ... You're done!

Congratulations! You've now got a list of keywords that'll help
you focus on the right topics for your business, and get you some
short-term and long-term gains. You can even download our free SEO template to help you organize your keywords and track which terms you're focusing on for different pages of your website.
Be sure to re-evaluate these keywords every few months -- once a
quarter is a good benchmark, but some businesses like to do it even more
often than that. As you gain even more authority in the SERPs, you'll
find that you can add more and more keywords to your lists to tackle as
you work on maintaining your current presence, and then growing in new
areas on top of that.Now it's your turn. Everyone has their own methods and tricks to conducting keyword research. Share yours in the comments!Editor's Note: This post was originally published in February
2014 and has since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.People Often Ask